Thursday, July 7, 2011

If Protestantism is True........

When I read a review of Devin Rose's book, If Protestantism is True at the Impractical Catholic blog, I knew that it was a book I'd want to read. When I found that I could purchase the Kindle edition for just $2.99, I realized I had absolutely no excuse not to snatch it up.

Rose's book lives up to my expectations. Mr. Rose does an excellent job of explaining how Christianity couldn't possible make sense if Protestantism is true. The arguments put forth by the tens of thousands of Protestant denominations contradict the Bible, the early Church Fathers and logic itself.

One example:

"If Protestantism is true, then there is no reason why someone today could not remove any number of books from the New Testament and declare that he has come up with the true Bible, made up of whichever books do not contradict his beliefs. After all, the first leader of the Protestant Reformation did just that to a thousand-year-old canon, and most of the rest of his teachings and opinions are now followed by hundreds of millions of Protestant Christians. And certainly countless sects and cults have since then followed his example—adding, deleting, and 'retranslating' to the nth degree. Several (excellent and valuable) Protestant cult-watch groups are kept busy by these modern-day 'reformers.' "

"If Protestantism is true, then in the 1500s, for the first time in the history of the Church, a group that left the Church and broke communion with her to form another 'Church' was actually following God’s will. Additionally, because Protestantism was a decentralized set of movements, the Church was 'reformed' by several conflicting groups of Christians who contradicted one another on which of the old doctrines were false and which were true. The mystical Body of Christ, which is a unity, became a disunity in defiance of Christ’s prayer in John 17, but somehow that disunity was willed by Christ instead of being what it always had been in the past: a heretical schism from the Church".

"If Protestantism is true, then Christians should base their beliefs off of the Bible alone and, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, be able to come to know the fullness of the truth revealed by Christ. But how, then, are we to explain the thousands of Protestant denominations, each with its own biblical interpretation?"

The only down side I can think of concerning the book is that, by buying the Kindle edition, I am unable to loan the book to friends. However,while I may not be able to loan a physical copy of the book, I can, I hope, encourage people to, at the very least, purchase the book for Kindle.